concussion/504 plan

[Anonymous]

OP, I think you just need to steer away from the hot button issue of whether homework or classwork assigned is "essential" or "non-essential" because no teacher would willingly admit that she is assigning busywork.

For 7th grade and up, word searches in my mind are busywork. Crossword puzzles and many coloring assignments as well. Although I'm sure people can come on here and provide examples of how a coloring project is ABSOLUTELY VITAL in their professional opinion to understanding some key science concept of whatever.

Your doctor's note probably got teachers' dander up by asking the child be excused from "non-essential" work. Better to have him or her write something like "avoid extended eye strain, or mental computation longer than 15 minutes" unless such work is absolutely required by the curriculum.

Then, if the teacher wants to assign, say, a word search, and justified it because word searches provide practice becomeing familiar with new vocabulary, you could cite the doctor's note and say "Let's find a way to provide practice with new vocabulary (part of curriculum) that doesn't involve intense eye strain (searching for words is NOT part of the curriculum). Perhaps the child could orally repeat the words 3x to provide familiarity with the vocabulary, for instance.